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Retail Education

Home furnishings and lighting retailers face many challenges in this ever-changing economy. From new consumer expectations to online competition, today's retailers work hard to ensure their customers have access to on-trend products and great customer service. In this section, you'll find all things retailing — news, features, analysis and tools — needed to make your retail business a success.

dining room with a Schonbek chandelier
This Century chandelier from Schonbek may be suitable for everyday glamour, but keeping it clean doesn’t have to feel like a chore. 

Shine On! 4 Tips for Cleaning a Crystal Chandelier

Above a rustic farmhouse dining table. Over a gorgeous marble kitchen countertop. Above a vintage claw foot tub. A crystal chandelier can lend unexpected glamour and whimsy to high-traffic spaces,…
Zuo-Mod-bar-cart
Might as well put your showroom's bar carts (like this one from Zuo Mod) to good use, right?

Showroom Bar: Would You Serve Alcohol?

What goes great with a velvet sofa? A glass of wine, obviously. That seems to be City Furniture's strategy. This October, the company began serving craft beer and wine at its Tarmarac, FL location,…
Velvet-couches
Velvet turned out to be all the rage at the summer markets and High Point Market.

La Vie en Velvet

Like actress Emma Stone gripping onto her Oscar for La La Land, velvet is holding hard and fast to its reign as the “It” fabric of the year. In fashion, luxe velvet showed up everywhere from the…
social-media-automation-social-media-scheduling
Sometimes automating your thinking can do wonders for your social media posts. Here's how. (Photo: magicatwork via Flickr)

How to Automate Social Media — Without Losing Your Voice

When social media automation first came out, the posts were somewhat laughable. They sounded robotic, and it was easy to spot when a real person was actually doing the posting in real time. Nowadays…
Lighting&Decor-Showroom-of-the-Year-Dallas-Market-Center
Lighting showrooms can enter the 9th Annual Showroom of the Year Awards, and anyone in the industry may nominate a showroom.

Entries/Nominations for 2018 Lighting Showroom of the Year Awards Now Being Accepted Online

The ninth annual Lighting Showroom of the Year Awards competition, which honors exceptional lighting retailers, is now open and accepting entries and nominations. The 2018 Awards are hosted by…
Moe's Home Collections' Jennaya chair in a jewel tone
A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but these jewel-tone pieces are our best friends.

The Family Jewels

Sapphires, rubies and emeralds — oh my! It’s no wonder the precious (and semi-precious) palette has popped up everywhere from fashion runways to floral arrangements this year—and pretty much every…
best app for editing photos
Have you checked out these photo editing apps? Read on to learn more about them.

3 Best Apps for Editing Photos

Nothing kills an image like poor lighting or a blurry background, and in an increasingly digital world where most consumers will judge you first by your social media profiles and website, you can't…
Elements-Lighting-And-Home-Lifestyle-by-Elements
Elements mails “LightStyle by Elements” to local residents and promotes the content on social media. But customers and designers can also pick up a copy in the showroom.

How to Publish Your Own Shelter Magazine

Elements Lighting and Home, an 18,000-square-foot showroom on Long Island in New York, is filled with pretty things — lighting from all the top brands, furniture and accessories too. Retail customers…
Walmart-Black-Friday-Shopping
This year, Walmart and other retailers tried a few new strategies to compete with online retailers and bring customers to their stores. (Photo: Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube via Flickr)

What You Can Learn from Walmart's Black Friday Strategy

Ten years ago, no Thanksgiving meal ended without a few Black Friday horror stories: alarms going off at 4 a.m., the long lines in front of Walmart and Best Buy and the fights to score the big gifts…
record-player
(Photo: Matthew Henry)

4 Tips for Choosing the Right Music for Your Showroom

If your showroom is an experience, you want it to be a harmonious one, with all aspects combining to strike all the right chords with your customers. Especially in an industry that’s so visually-…
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